The C Factor
by BioKraze
Summary: The C factor is a dangerous entity in all its aspects. Zim never counted on another race to preempt the Irkens.
1. Thy World Devastated

Invader Zim_, its concepts and personalities are copyrighted by Nickelodeon/Viacom. _X-COM: UFO Defense_, its concepts and personalities are copyrighted by Atari, Inc. I, _BioKraze_, own nothing save the original plot of this fanfiction and the Nanex Imperiuum. Please ask me first if you wish to use the Nanex Imperiuum in your stories._

_Author's Note: If you wanna know what the Imperiuum is about, check my profile's website. Click on "Alien Containment" and read on! Thanks to the anonymous "Wicked Noise" for alerting me to this lack of info!_

The devastation was complete. No human could have possibly survived the attack from beyond the stars. The Aliens had come, in their massive dreadnoughts and battleships, destroying entire cities with their lethal plasma beams and fusion bombs. They poisoned both air and sea, destroying the fragile environment of the Earth in less than a week. Coastal cities were flooded out, the ruined buildings lying under countless tonnes of corrosive seawater. Those structures fortunate enough to be on higher ground were reduced to smoking concrete and molten steel slag. The skies were red with fire, often glowing an unhealthy green from the massive radiation levels.

The terrible Aliens had killed an entire planet, then simply left for the great unknown. Nothing could possibly survive on the charred and irradiated world, let alone thrive. The Earth was dead, fit only to be blasted into meteors. Soon, the Irken Armada would be here, but not even the terraforming crews could resurrect this broken, dead planet. The only use of this planet would be target practice for the Massive's supralaser cannon.

Another failed experiment in the cosmic game of life and death. Another speck of light snuffed out for all eternity, and perhaps longer still. From the wreckage of the human world, a single purple ship blasted off to meet with the Irken Armada. Inside the ancient Voot Cruiser, Zim couldn't understand why the Nanex Imperiuum had concentrated their entire naval force upon the doomed humans. What had the humans done to incur the wrath of the deadly Imperiuum? The Irkens, at least, used worlds for their purposes, often ripping out entire ecological systems in favor of cybernetic landscapes. The Nanex, though, simply destroyed and left worlds and star systems for dead. Zim only hoped that they would never come to blows with the Irken Empire and its formidable spaceborne navy.

From what the tiny Invader and his deranged SIR Unit had seen, the Irkens would follow in the ashes of the humans. Countless threads had been cut by the hand of Fate, with no rhyme or reason to their loss. Zim thought of the irony. Nobody had ever listened to Dib about his crusade, and they had paid for it with their entire race. The Irken spoke only one word, the emotion thrown into the single quote he would make for six months...

_"Horror..."_


	2. Thy Vengeance Complete

Aboard the command dreadnought _Tal Karam_, the scanners picked up a single craft leaving the atmosphere of the now dead Earth. The Neidarians were amazed. A survivor? Should it be shot down to burn like the others? The main gunner turned to his commander, who sat in a chair beside a computerised table of magenta and blue.

"Sir, we have a craft on radar. Your orders?" asked the gunner of his commander. The leader in the saffron cloak seemed interested in the possibility of a survivor. Perhaps it wasn't a human, but simply a fluke of fate.

"Identify its origin first," replied Commander Tor Ellery. "Is it human or Alien?"

The gunner nodded and turned back to his console, and after some moments, had his answer.

"Alien. It's an Irken Voot Cruiser, model SX." The gunner paused. "I didn't think they still used those ancient things..."

Tor nodded. The Irkens had set their sights on this world? Perhaps the Imperiuum should teach these upstart Irkens and their Invaders a lesson. For the glory of the Nanex Imperiuum, they should blow this alien interloper out of the sky!

Yet what was a lone Irken in an older model of Voot Cruiser to the might of the Imperial Armada? Tor decided on his course of action. "Let him go. Let him go and tell his Tallest of what we have done here to Earth." He paused. "Let him spread his tale of terror, so that we might conquer the Irkens more easily with their innate fear of creatures more capable of universal conquest than they." The gunner nodded and relayed his commander's decision to the outlying battleships.

Meanwhile, the leader of the Imperiuum's Tiamat Legion began to brood deeply. _An Irken tried to invade the humans_, thought Tor, _and they probably never believed him. What a sad state of affairs_, he thought, _that the Imperiuum inspired more terror in the heart of what was humanity than the Empire ever could..._ With a deep sigh, the Commander turned to the main navigator.

"Set a course for home and plot the hyperjump. We shall tell our Empress of what transpired when we dock at base..." The fleet turned away from the devastated world that was known as Earth, and each ship began to disappear into the great unknown of hypraspace. As the _Tal Karam_ began to waver out of normal existence, Tor Ellery had to commend the humans for surviving the Cydonian and T'lethan invasions, but held a hatred for them nevertheless. He muttered a single curse, one he had begun to say often and in private:

"Damn the X-COM Project to hell..."


End file.
